(17 Jun 2011) HEADLINE: First Person: Seniors using medical marijuana
CAPTION: Seniors at a retirement community in Orange County, California have set up their own medical marijuana collective. The participants say using the legal cannabis helps them cope with their ailments. (June 8)
(NAT sound of marijuana collective president Lonnie Painter smoking his bong)
(sot: LONNIE PAINTER, Laguna Woods Village resident and president of the Laguna Woods Village for Medical Cannabis collective)
"We're in Laguna Woods Village. It's a retirement community for 55 and over, there's about, um, 18,000 people live here. You know there were dispensaries over in Lake Forest but the city was constantly trying to shut 'em down and a lot of residents had never used cannabis before and they were confused and they felt uncomfortable going and talking to a 20-year-old who didn't know much more than they did. So we decided we would do this ourselves because we had a lot of intelligent people here with a lot of skills."
(sot: MARGO BAUER, medical marijuana collective member and multiple sclerosis patient:)
"Well, first of all, I've had M.S. for many, many years and to the best extent that I can, I ignore it, you know. Everything was going along OK until I started getting nauseated. ... And I was really uncomfortable about this, but I put a little bit in there, I lit and I took a little inhale and only held it in my mouth as long as I could and then I blew it out."
(sot: MARGO BAUER)
"I don't have any nausea now. It helps me live and I wasn't ready to go on living much longer."
(SOT: LONNIE PAINTER)
"Our youngest is probably in their 40s and our oldest in their 90s and (they have) all sorts of different things: multiple sclerosis, people on cancer therapy, neuropathic pain. ... They've got to sit down, explain it to their children, who THEY used to go, 'We don't want you ever to use that stuff!' and now THEY'RE using it. ... One of the justifications that you hear by law enforcement and their friends is, you know, 'Look at these people at the dispensaries. They look like they're in their twenties and thirties and they look healthy.' Well, we're in our sixties, seventies and eighties and some of us are on walkers and canes. You know, they can't accuse us of, you know, just trying to get high."
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